Tuesday 4^th September

I am slowly building up a library on my ipad.  It is very tempting to read them now now NOW but…I am not bad at delayed gratification, and when I will really need ebooks is…when I am at sea.  So every week or so I add a book or two.  Some of them I am very much looking forward to reading, others…not so much.  I told you I stopped halfway through the second Fifty Shades book…well the third one is still there waiting, unopened, and I really can’t see that it is ever going to go much further. 

NO I am not trying to publicise Fifty Shades of Grey – the author REALLY doesn’t need any more publicity, I can assure you…

But I just read an interview with Mr Fifty Shades which amused me and threw a different light on the whole business.

In order to publicise his own novel* Mr 50 Shades of Grey, wrote a piece for The Guardian, explaining that, though married to its writer  he’s not really the inspiration for Christian Grey, “I’m the least romantic fecker that ever lived – ask my wife, Erica, aka E.L James. Our first Christmas together, I bought her a tin opener and my earliest experience of kinky sex was her trying to shove it up my arse.”

We went out and bought her a desk, she sat down and started typing, and produced two novels, working every spare minute she had. If she was happy, I was delighted – I finally got to watch The Sopranos and The Wire back to back with no one moaning about the violence or the impenetrable slang.

Fifty Shades Of Grey is a fantasy – have they forgotten what that means? Do they chase JK Rowling down the street daring her to use her Avra Kedavra spell?  Do they ask Hilary Mantel how many courtiers she's beheaded?

*Crusher, by Niall Leonard (and goodness only knows what it will be like…)